


A Broken Spear

by Isis



Category: Eagle of the Ninth - Rosemary Sutcliff
Genre: Gen, Rituals, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-21
Updated: 2012-06-21
Packaged: 2017-11-08 07:49:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/440902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isis/pseuds/Isis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One year later, Liathan remembers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Broken Spear

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the ninth_eagle Fanmedia Challenge, inspired by the picture of the drum. Thanks to Carmarthen for beta. No archive warnings apply, but story contains suicidal thoughts.

A year, Liathan thought, should have been sufficient. An entire year to wash away his shame in the turning of the wheel of the seasons, to make him new and whole again. But the sound of Diamid's hand striking the hollow log, boom-boom, boom-boom, setting the rhythm for the totem priests' dance; the sight of Otter and Badger and his own clan's Seal, and the Horned One standing under the Horned Moon before the Place of Life; it brought it all back to him, what had happened a year ago after the Feast of New Spears, and he could no longer pretend he had forgotten.

Nor had the others forgotten. Eyes went to where he stood alone, watching the dancers, and he knew they were thinking of the Eagle-god of the Red Crests that for many years had flown wingless over the acceptance of the new warriors of the tribe, but that would not look down on them tonight.

It was not as though they needed that ugly lump of metal, thought Liathan. The boys of the Epidii had been made men year after year before ever it had been won from the Red Crests. But he had come out of the dark under its watchful eye, as had many of his spear-brothers who waited to greet the boys who would be newly reborn from the earth tonight. They would all of them feel its absence.

"It is not your fault alone," his brother the chieftain had said. "They told us lies and they stole in the night." Dergdian's voice had been cold. It had been a bitter thing to be accused of hunting down their guests with no cause, and more bitter still to discover that the accusation was a sham and the cause was true, and the Eagle was flown south with the false eye-doctor and his companion. "They said it was we who shamed them by our suspicion, but they shamed us all."

But it had been Liathan who had been shamed the most. It had been Liathan and Brys and Comgal who had been ambushed in the old watch-tower; but it had been Liathan alone who had been charged by his grandfather Tradui to kill the man who was the son of the Chieftain of the Red Crest, and it had been Liathan alone who had lied to his spear-brothers, calling from the tower that the thieves were not there.

When the other warriors had returned to find them tied and gagged, they had mocked all three for the recklessness which had got them captured, when they had struck out ahead of their band. They had called them foolish pups, and told them they should give up their spears, and he and Brys and Comgal hung their heads and looked at the stone floor. But the sharpest edge of the warriors' mockery had been reserved for Liathan.

"Were you so afraid, then, that the healer of sore eyes would stab you with his medicine-sticks, that you sent us on a false trail?" one had said, as none too gently he cut the strips of cloth that bound Liathan's hands, and took the gag from his mouth.

"It was not for me I was afraid," Liathan had protested. "He would have thrown the winged god into the tarn. If you had caught them before the wall, we might have taken it again, to raise it as our standard against the Red Crests."

"If he had thrown it into the tarn, the Red Crests would not have it now, and that would be better for us."

His face had grown hot, then, as they looked at him; they were right, and he had been stupid. They had ridden back to the dun in silence.

When he slipped back into the living-hut he had had to tell his brother and grandfather what had happened, and that was the worst of all. Dergdian, still weak with the wound-fever, had closed his eyes and said nothing. Later he had told Liathan that it had not been his fault alone, but that did not take away the sting of failure.

Tradui had looked at him for a long moment, his eyes traveling from Liathan's face down to his bare neck, no longer circled with the thong that had held the Red Crest Chieftain's ring. "He is his father's son, and now he has his father's ring," Tradui finally said, and there was grudging admiration in his voice; but it was for the Red Crest's son, and not for him.

Diamid slapped his open palm on the hollow log, boom-boom, boom-boom, and it brought it all back to Liathan and to everyone else in the tribe; he was a fool to ever have thought he could escape his shame.

Dazed and shining with hope and triumph, the new warriors emerged from the Place of Life to receive their weapons and be accepted by the tribe. As Liathan watched one boy after another raise his new spear to great Cruachan and the sliver of moon, something went sour and rotten in his heart; for as each boy was welcomed with shouts and cheers, it felt to him as though his own welcome in the tribe diminished by that measure; as though the love and honor given to them was taken from him.

Boom-boom, boom-boom went the hollow log. It was the pulse in his neck, in his ears, ominous, angry, shutting out everything else. Liathan's eyes stung with the smoke from the torches. His mouth felt dry and his head as hollow as the log-drum. Sometimes a man would look at where the Eagle-god would have been, held high above the ranks of the tribe; then he might turn to look at Liathan, his face shadowed like a cold stone. After a while Liathan kept his eyes on the ground, so he would not have to look back at them.

When it was time for the feasting he followed the procession to the dun, and slipped into his place at the Chieftain's fire. Dergdian's face in the fire-light had the same shadowed coldness as the other warriors. No, his brother had not forgotten the loss of the Eagle-god, either.

He looked across the fires to where a girl was filling Comgal's drinking-horn, smiling at him, and Comgal was smiling back at her. A dog frolicked around Comgal's feet, and he reached down to rub at its head and let it loll against his legs; and Liathan felt a stab of envy, that Comgal sat so easily in his place in the clan, while he himself could no longer find his own.

He let Fionhula fill his drinking-horn with metheglin, and he ate a portion of roast meat, but the noise and laughter seemed to pass over him like mist passing over the moors. He did not want to listen to the harper's song or the chatter of boys. It was not for him; none of it was for him.

There was no place for him any more with his clan or his tribe. There were men from other places here, Hibernian sailors and Dumnonii traders and hunters and harpers, and they would be leaving on their own paths the next day. Perhaps his spear would be welcome in some other tribe, one that would not see the wingless Eagle-god when they looked at him.

Perhaps, he thought, taking another fiery swallow of metheglin, it would be best for him to simply disappear into the sea.

It would be easy to slip away as the great gathering ended. Nobody would notice. He would walk along the cliff to where the current would sweep his body away, and it would not be found. It might be the best thing for him to do.

"You do not join in the feast," said a voice. It was Tuathal the totem priest, who had come to sit beside him. He no longer wore the seal-skin that transformed him into the clan's seal-totem, but he was still their totem priest, an elder with more knowledge and wisdom than most, and Liathan was somehow not surprised he had appeared just at that moment.

"The feast is not for me," Liathan replied. He drained the last drops from his drinking-horn. "I am an old and broken spear, not a new one."

"You are not so old as that," said Tuathal gently. "And broken spears can be mended."

"Everybody knows a mended spear is never as strong as it was before. No warrior would use one lest it break in the hand. Better to take it apart and make it anew."

"Yes," agreed Tuathal, and Liathan looked up at him in surprise. "Why, that is what we did tonight, is it not? We took boys apart, and made them into men."

"That is different."

"It is exactly the same. Oh, it will only be a small ceremony, not like this. But the Seal Clan needs every one of its spears to be whole and fit for battle. They need to know that none will break in the hand." He rose, touching Liathan on the shoulder. "The moon will grow, and die, and be reborn again. That is when we will do it; at the next Horned Moon. It is the time for new beginnings, for death and rebirth. Will you journey into the Place of Life and make your spear anew?"

It had been death he had been thinking of, after all; the sleeping without waking. It had not occurred to him that he might rise again from it. But Tuathal had seen it, somehow, in the set of his shoulders as he sat by the fire letting the feast wash over him; and Tuathal had offered him rebirth.

"Yes," Liathan finally said. "I will."

* * *

The next few weeks were a misery. The fine weather of early autumn gave way to cold winds that blew from the north, presaging a hard winter to come, and storms whipped up the sea to send a chill mist across the land. It was weather to make one wrap one's cloak more tightly about one's body and bide in the dun with family and clan. But though Liathan was surrounded by family and clan, they still felt apart to him; and he yearned for the night he would die and be reborn with the moon, as Tuathal had promised.

It was mid-afternoon when Tuathal led him between the granite rocks that marked the entrance into the Place of Life. The sealskin curtain fell across the doorway behind him, cutting off the light. "Put your hand on my shoulder," murmured Tuathal, and Liathan followed him through the darkness. Their footsteps echoed from the stone slabs that lined the floor.

Liathan felt as though the blackness around him was seeping into his skin. It was strange, but not frightening. He wondered if this was what death truly felt like, this slow and steady procession into darkness.

Ahead of him Tuathal came to a halt and struck a flame. They were in the tomb-chamber now, Liathan could see by the dim light. Tuathal bent to make a small fire in the white ring in the center of the chamber, then scattered a handful of fragrant herbs on the flames.

When Liathan had been made a warrior with the other boys of the tribe, they had all sat together by the priests' fire. Now he sat alone as Tuathal murmured words and made signs around him. He had eaten nothing that day, and the sweet smoke made him dizzy; the room seemed to move, the stone walls twisting and dipping as the shadows of the fire flickered across them. In one moment Tuathal was a man, and in another moment he was a seal, and in yet another he was a giant, stretching to the ceiling so high above them that Liathan could not see it; in the next moment he was gone entirely, and Liathan was alone by the fire.

He was not alone for long. Slow footsteps sounded along the stone floor of the tunnel, and a man lowered himself to sit beside him. Tuathal has returned, thought Liathan, and he turned his head toward him. But it was not Tuathal by his side. Sitting by him was his grandfather, old Tradui.

He looked back at the fire. "I am sorry, Grandfather," he said softly.

Tradui snorted. "What is it you are sorry for?"

"For losing the Eagle-god of the Red Crests. For bringing shame on our clan."

"That is in the past now. It no longer matters."

"It matters to me," Liathan said bitterly. "I have failed. I am no warrior."

"Tell me, my grandson. Does your spear hit your quarry every time you throw it?"

"Most of the time it does," said Liathan, and despite his shame and his sorrow he could not keep the pride out of his voice.

"Every time?" asked Tradui again.

Liathan did not have to turn his head to know the look on his grandfather's lined face; his raised eyebrow, his look of mock surprise. "Perhaps not every time," he admitted.

"So when you miss, do you break your spear in half for having failed you? Do you swear to never pick it up, and say you are no warrior? No. You go pick it up from where it lies, and you throw it again."

"But the quarry is gone. The Red Crests have their god again."

"They do not." There was satisfaction in Tradui's voice. "The son of the Red Crest Chieftain has buried it in the ground. Ayee! It will not fly above their warriors again!"

Liathan frowned. "So it does not matter that they took it again? I did not cost the tribes a victory?"

"There are victories, and there are victories," said the old man. "In the end, perhaps none of them matter so much. The fire of the Red Crests will sink low and go out; the Red Crests will be gone from our land and their towers will crumble to dust. But that is in the years and years to come, and much will happen before then."

"What will happen?" demanded Liathan.

"Much will happen," repeated Tradui. "You will take up your spear again and throw it, and you will hit your quarry most of the time. You will take a woman to your house-place and have many sons, and dance with them the Dance of the New Spears, as your father danced with you." He cocked his head toward Liathan. "And perhaps you will remember the time you thought of death, and you will be glad you chose to be reborn."

The old man looked at him with his bright, sharp eyes, and Liathan nodded, accepting his wisdom. "You are right."

"Am I not always right? I was right about the son of the Chieftain of the Red Crests, and I am right about this as well." Slowly, stiffly, Tradui rose to his feet. Liathan began to rise as well, but Tradui shook his head. "You chose to be reborn," he said. "Now it is time for you to wake. It was a good sleep?"

That was not Tradui's voice, Liathan realized, as he blinked the sleep from his eyes and came fully awake. Instead it was Tuathal who stood above him with a lit torch in his hand, waiting for him to make the ritual answer.

He cleared his throat. "It was a good sleep, and a good waking."

Tuathal nodded. "Come, then."

It must have been a dream, although it hadn't seemed like it at all. His grandfather Tradui had been there in the great tomb-chamber beside him, he had been sure of it. Tradui, who had died that past winter.

When Tradui had died, Liathan had felt a little as though that, too, had been his fault. Perhaps his failure to retrieve the Eagle-god had disappointed his grandfather so greatly that he no longer wanted to stay with his family and clan. But now he understood it had only been the old man's time, as everything had its time: that was what his grandfather had come to tell him. That what had passed was past, and that it was time for him to look forward.

He followed Tuathal through the tunnel back to the entrance of the Place of Life, thinking about these things. He could no longer remember exactly what Tradui had said, but it did not matter. A warm feeling spread through his chest and into his limbs. He was alive, and he was glad to be alive. His broken spear had been mended, made anew, and he was ready to throw it again.

They came out into torchlit darkness, under the silver crescent of the Horned Moon hanging in the night sky. Dergdian's smile had no coldness to it at all, and the men of the clan greeted him with cheers; and the boom-boom, boom-boom of Diamid's cupped palm slapping a hollow log welcomed him back into the world.

**Author's Note:**

> The rituals and beliefs in this story are cobbled together from both the source text and Rosemary Sutcliff's _Mark of the Horse Lord_ , which is a wonderful book that Eagle fans should read!


End file.
